The main thing we want you to hear from us is a BIG thank you to those individuals who responded to our recent survey on the proposed disability cuts. It was no doubt a sensitive and frustrating topic on which to share your experience so it’s important to share a flavour of what happened afterwards. We believe your responses have helped to make a difference !
Thanks to a mix of our efforts and individuals writing to their MPs directly, we eventually got successful contact and action from 3 of the 7 local MPs just days before the main vote on the proposed disability benefit cuts. The survey helped us speak more clearly to those MPs in what was a very busy weekend running up to the 1st of July vote. Thanks to the work of many disabled peoples’ organisations including our own efforts, the PIP 4-point rule was taken from that bill.
The third reading a week later saw some MP’s reach out again.
We have also had one meeting with Sheffield organisations and the DWP regarding impacts by mainly focusing on Pathways to Work. Many issues have been flagged including the 90+ day average delay for Access to Work support, that some cannot work, the necessity for others of part time work, and querying where those jobs are that fit our abilities. We also used the survey results to emphasise PIP is essential for many of us to work or volunteer in a way that Access to Work is not and to challenge the political presentation that benefit cuts would get more disabled people into work where in practice it would undermine people already working.
There is a lot more to pull out and learn from what has been shared and we are sure that there will be more twists and turns on the disability benefits topic so keeping up to date with information on this topic, as we try to in our news bulletin, is so important.
Where opportunities arise to get our voices heard we will look to reach out using some focus sessions if we have enough advance notice to realistically do this and we hope you will consider taking part.
Thank you again for completing our survey and helping to fight the cuts.
